2_2015 Page 6

Feb_15_WF

Close to Home
program still plagued
with problems
STATEN ISLAND — The results
of misguided juvenile justice
policies were once again
highlighted after three girls
went missing on Christmas
night while in the care of a
nonprofit residential center for
troubled youths.
Though all the girls, from
a facility in a Staten Island
once run by the state Office of
Children and Family Services,
have been returned safely,
many people are again raising
questions about security at
the facility and others like it
across the city and the “Close
to Home” initiative.
Continued concerns
Two years after the Close to
Home program began and with
a proposal under consideration
in Albany to raise the adult
criminal age
to 18, there is
concern that
more youthful
offenders
coming into an
already troubled
system could
lead to greater
problems and
public safety
issues.
According to the Staten
Island Advance, New York
City’s Administration for
Children’s Services (ACS),
contracts with nine service
providers to run 31 Close to
Home facilities across the city,
including the Staten Island
residential center where the
girls live.
The Advance also reported
that resident escapes, like
the ones from Staten Island
Close to Home on Christmas,
have plagued the program
since its inception in 2012, and
precipitated the shuttering of
at least one of Staten Island’s
other Close to Home facilities.
Stephen’s House in Staten
Island’s Stapleton section
was closed in June 2013, the
same month that a 17-year-old
resident was charged in the
stabbing death of another teen
while AWOL from the facility.
Failed policy
Despite scathing reports
about the abysmal failure of
the Close to Home juvenile
“reform” program, it continues
to divert youthful
offenders from
state juvenile
justice facilities to
inadequate New
York City-based
startup programs.
CSEA has
repeatedly
expressed concerns
about the Close
to Home program,
“It is outrageous
to disregard public
safety, including
the well being
of the youths,
and make a bad
situation worse.”
noting that the state’s
transferring of juveniles from
state facilities to ill-prepared
private providers leave the
youths and communities at
risk.
In 2013, Queens Family
Court Judge John Hunt called
the initiative “a threat to public
safety” after court documents
exposed repeated failures
with the program, including
a lack of security so bad that
youthful offenders were able to
walk away at will. At one point,
50 youths in the program
(about one in four) were
missing at the same time.
“It is outrageous to disregard
public safety, including the
well being of the youths,
and make a bad situation
worse,” CSEA President Danny
Donohue said in 2013. “It
CSEA has repeatedly
expressed concern about
misguided policies putting
staff, youths and the
public at risk.
makes no sense whatsoever to
put dangerous individuals back
into the very neighborhoods
where they got in trouble in
the first place without any
evidence that they will be
properly supervised.”
CSEA strongly supports
efforts to help turn around
the lives of youthful offenders
through appropriate programs
in safe and secure settings,
with qualified staff who have
adequate resources to provide
the services.
— David Galarza
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6 The Work Force February 2015